<Begin Segment 18>

TI: A little bit later in training I wanted to ask about, a man joined your unit, Shiro Kashino, and I wanted to ask you about Shiro a little bit and what kind of man was Shiro?

SK: Shiro, when I first met him, he was quite outgoing, outgoing fellow, but not boastful, outgoing, but not boastful. And I thought we got along very nicely and he was a big fellow, huh. At that time I thought he was a 6-footer. I'm small and I remember -- you see, he came a little late. He came a little late, but then he caught up with us quite fast and after training, we do individual soldier's training and I remember this particular time. We were all sitting together, the squad, telling each other how we should protect ourselves in hand-to-hand combat. One of our members, he knew his judo and more jujitsu. It's a little different from judo, jujitsu. So he was showing us what to do in case he's attacked, and he did a good job on one of our guys, flying, flying leg scissors and all those body attacks like that. And then he said, "Sergeant, why don't you do it, show your judo?" Well, I told him that I took a little judo and I had a brown belt. It's not quite black belt, you see, so he said, "Why don't you do your judo on Kashino?" and I said, "No, no." Well, he goaded me and he goaded me, see? So I said, "Well, okay. Kash, let's try." So my famous one is seoinage, that's (to) go under him and then just lift him up and throw him over my shoulder. So we are sparring a little bit and I went under him, and that bugger just grabbed me by my waistline, lifted me up -- [laughs] -- and I couldn't do anything. And he laughed and said, "You wiry bugger, you." [Laughs] But these are the things that we did for fun too, but (it was) all (...) towards training, what we could do. But this is the type of guy Shiro was at the beginning, anyway. And, too, during his drinking hours, after hours, he didn't drink too much, but after couple he would stand on the dining room -- actually the mess hall, mess hall dining table, and he'll dance and gyrate around singing the "Famous Tangerine." [Laughs] And he used to make us laugh and I really appreciated him, made it light for us, not just training, training, training. But he made us laugh all the time so that was good.

TI: So even though he was a mainland Nisei, he fit really, in really well with the Hawaiians.

SK: That's the amazing thing, yeah.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.